Everyone involved in The Blame Game reality show in D.C. is fully armed with pet facts designed to paint someone else in as bad a light as possible. But like every reality show, the facts and circumstances are contrived. Today's Afghanistan edition of the Blame Game is no exception.
For many years I have told people that the D.C. in Washington, D.C. stands for “Dizzy City.” That’s largely because following the finger pointing circle of the Blame Game will make you feel positively spinny.
Everyone involved in The Blame Game reality show in D.C. is fully armed with pet facts designed to paint someone else in as bad a light as possible. But like every reality show, the facts and circumstances are contrived. Today’s Afghanistan edition of the Blame Game is no exception.
Back in the February of 2020, the Trump administration inked a deal to “bring peace to Afghanistan” by signing a deal with the Taliban to fully withdraw American forces from the country. The existing Afghan government was not included in the deal. True to their word, the Taliban stopped killing Americans. This was in spite of the fact that Russia was paying bounties for American’s killed in that war. The Trump White House hailed this as a historic agreement, trying to drum up a foreign policy win for their guy.
Part of the agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban included the release of 5000 Taliban prisoners held by Afghanistan.
After Biden’s inauguration, he stated that he would stick to the agreement on the pull out. Makes perfect sense. There is a concept of continuity of government and policy.
Armed with the fact that we would be pulling out and with the date set, the Taliban were free to plan and act. Their full sweep of the country without firing many shots at all tells a story of effective advance negotiations with Afghan Army commanders. Speaking purely from speculation, we will probably hear more details of this in the coming weeks.
So now we have an incredibly repressive regime in charge of the most historically inhospitable and unconquerable real estate in the world. Many outrageous images are coming out of the area, from photos of 800 or so people crammed into the cargo hold of a C-17 being evacuated, to the desperate and heart-wrenching clips of people trying hang on to the landing gear cowling of that same jet and falling to their deaths, to the images of Taliban fighters patrolling Kabul in US up-armored Humvees fully equipped with US supplied M2 .50 cal machine guns.
That’s right. Taliban forces are now fully equipped and supplied courtesy of me and thee through our taxes.
The Crux
We have been there 20 years. Over $2 trillion has been spent. And that is what this is really about. Reality shows are all about distraction. We are spoon fed stories about rich housewives, or naked fools in some inhospitable place and take our attention off of other things.
The Afghanistan edition of the Blame Game will now go into full gear with the GOP trying to paint it as Biden’s policy failure, conveniently ignoring the negotiations done and finalized by the former guy—which also swelled the ranks of Taliban forces by about 5000 men. At the same time, the GOP quietly removed a webpage that advertised Trump’s success from their site.
Meanwhile, Dems will point out that Trump made the agreement and Biden just carried it out. Both are a distraction.
The real important facts are that we spent 20 years there. We burned $2 trillion dollars there. We lost thousands and many more thousands were injured and maimed. Many more committed suicide. The true reality of war is that it is death by many forms.
But for the truly ugly, part we have to return to the $2 trillion dollars that was spent on it. Where did that money go? It certainly wasn’t shipped to Afghanistan to buy out opium poppy farmers or build some lasting edifice. No, it was spent here. That money went to the enrichment of Americans and American companies. A sickening portion of those trillions are profits that went to executives, staffs, shareholders and lobbyists. The insanity of 20 years spent fighting in a country that has defeated every invader since Alexander, is that it was profitable.
So as the Blame Game reality show heats up, ignore it and ask the harder question. Who were the suckers who voted over and over for the insanity of a 20-year war to continue? Who received the campaign contributions from the profiteers of the most lucrative conflict in the history of man? We’ll find them on both sides of the aisle.
The Dizzy City Reality Show, Blame Game or any other edition, is just trying to mask this travesty. The best rule of thumb is just to ignore the show and ask who benefited. Insanity (war) for profit must end for humanity to prosper. That’s where our attention should be.
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